


Ghost of Pine

by baau



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV), Vampire Diaries
Genre: Adding More Tags LATER, F/M, i'll make a real summary one day, no beta no shame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baau/pseuds/baau
Summary: SI!OCs— Irene's guide to bagging a stepdad a la the good ol'isekai trope with a twist of tragedy. {summary subject to change}
Relationships: Elijah Mikaelson/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Excerpt from the ██████████████████ of Leonie Astraea Zhurong:

A Letter Addressed to Her Daughter

… my daughter, you are my whole world and I hope that I’ve lived long enough to hang the stars over where which you take shelter.

I know that the idea of the afterlife’s quite popular in those books you so enjoy lately, at least during the time of which I’m writing this to you, and that you entertain thoughts of where I was Before. I know that some have their protagonists catapulting off the side of the building, or hit by a semi, or stabbed in the back by a shadowy figure… I know that some people are fond of starting from the darkness and outwards as something bare and brand new. I know that I’ve never told you of my Before and I know that it’s been your greatest fear since that you might’ve Pulled me from a time before my end.

The matter of which I’ve appeared, did not abide those worries.

Irene, my dear, I hope my words hold strong to you because I know that I will never have the chance to tell you my story. My Before is, and never will be, your fault no matter what you think. There was no butterfly effect, no magic, no conspiracy. Instead it was my wedding night, and though you were not born and Of That World, I still apologize to the you that I’ve failed and thank you for Pulling me. Irene, you’re a powerful witch and I don’t want you to ever forget that. Nor let anyone take that away from you.

I was getting married poolside to the man of my dreams. To the man you grew up calling a stranger until the very end. It was beautiful. Him, in his tailored suit. Me, in that dress you first saw me in. Before it was dyed red and dirtied—not by your spell but by the fall, it was a striking white and detailed in flowers and lace. Your father tailored his outfit to match my dress in excess. The pool where we met was blanketed in petals, the stench of death masked by the perfume of hydrangeas and teakwood.

You were the agent of my aubade of a life. We kissed and were murdered by the priest at dawn. Something about the cyclical nature of beauty and recreating the image of Millais' _Ophelia_ with the one-hour bride. The psychopath threw me into the pool where the petals parted to reveal the still bleeding body of our ringbearer. My last look at my husband of one hour was of his body tackling the deranged man and then I was dragged down until I was pulled back up.

I was Dead and then I wasn’t.

Irene, when I first laid eyes on you, I cried not because of the shock of having just been dragged out of the earth instead of heavily chlorinated water (ok maybe a little), but because you were the image of my unborn child grown up and actualized. I did not avoid you for months because I was horrified of your power, but because I feared I could not be the mother you’d need me to be. I was traumatized and that manifested in the most horrible of behavior that you absolutely did not deserve. My talented and beautiful Irene who pulled the mother she’s never had at the request of an aged letter through worlds. You deserve the entire universe in your hands—I hope I, at least, gave you a galaxy of your own.

When I took in what was around me, the sharp smell of wood and surrounded by melted candlewax and eyes, I did not know what would become of me. What the you, who looked so much like the man who protected me till his last breath, who’s death did us part but still brought me _you,_ the perfect mix of the best parts of my first love and the coward that once had the gall to go around the world and call herself _Lee Astraea…_ I did not what to expect. But now at the end of my life, I finally do.

Zhurong Xia Ai, my beautiful and sweet Irene, you disgusting little goblin and my ever precious daughter. I named you after the waterlily leaves and my hope you will remember me as I am and not what I become— that you know my love. Remember that bit of poetry. It's the last bit of beauty I have left to gift. I didn't drown nor was I suffocating. You were the one who pulled me back up.

My little teenaged witch, I hope you take these lessons to heart and remember that to me and to the very end, you will always be my North Star. I hope I gave you everything as a mother and a guide, the line that completes your constellations. I hope my time with you was all you ever dreamed for and more and don’t worry

We’ll meet once again as star dust.

(or until Taaimaa grows bored again and plucks our souls right out of the cosmic cycle of reincarnation or whatever )

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

" Well then, kiss me, —since my mother left her blessing on my brow,  
There has been a something wanting in my nature until now;  
I can dimly comprehend it,—that I might have been more kind,  
Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. "

— " _The Old Astronomer to His Pupil"_ , **Sarah Williams**

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**one**.

The day Elena makes her deal with Elijah, Irene cut her own.

Sort of.

"I want you to stay away from my mom." 

It probably wouldn't have sounded as bad if it weren't for the fact that she was hiding behind a pillar when she said this, holding up a shovel like both objects would serve as a barrier to shield her from the Original. In her mind, it did.

Across from her, Elijah looked almost annoyed.

"Irene," never mind he was beyond ticked. "Don't be ridiculous. Put the shovel down before you hurt yourself."

Irene's only response was to lift the shovel higher. Her heart raced in her chest as she watched Elijah's annoyed expression break for something else. It was a small shift, but after all the time they spent together while he and her mom were whatever they were, it was a shift that she was able to spot easily. She almost didn't notice him take the shovel out of her hands and toss it off into the bushes.

Almost.

“I believe we’re overdue for a talk.”

“No,” she stopped the man before he could get any closer, one shaky hand outstretched in the space between the two of them. Both of them dreadfully aware that she was shaking like a leaf, “we talk right here but you’re not calling the shots. Not anymore.”

Irene swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to ignore how deep the pit in her stomach seemed to fall. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that the fact that her heart was literally on its way out her chest was something Elijah wouldn’t notice. In fact, a small twisted part of her that knew of his status as the Noble Original was counting on it. She wouldn’t have spent all night writing this exact speech unless she was 100% sure that it wouldn’t at least affect this man in some way.

Not with the kind of relationship he had with her and her mom.

Maybe in another world and in another time, she would have let what she learnt about the man slide and live on with her life. But this wasn’t that world, and this was her _mom_ she was talking about.

If there was one thing in the entire universe that motivated Irene more, it would be her mom.

“Very well.” Elijah frowned, eyes sliding away from her tremor to glare into the depths of the garden. His fingers idly playing with the silver cufflinks she bought for him before falling to his sides. Her heart beat its way up her throat again.

Bastard. Don’t let it get to you.

The two of them were both pointedly trying not to look into the house. The one that she just stalked Elijah out of after he left to take a call. The one that her mom was waiting for the both of them inside of because one left to take a phonecall and the other fled with the excuse that she had to go diarrhea.

“Are we just a convenient cover for you?”

“Irene--”

“Answer the question, Elijah.” She stepped away from the pillar now, with her arms crossed and right into his space. Unsure if it was because it would help mask her nervousness or to keep her from unconsciously reaching out to him. Maybe before Elena found herself in her mess of a life, she would have ran for just that. Irene had adored the man her mom was not-dating-but-‘seeing’, whatever that meant, and had one point pondered if it wasn’t immature of her to ask if she could count on him like a father. She was still in high school after all… But with everything going on, even before Stefan walked into Elena’s life, she had never had that stable father figure. Elijah was the closest thing to it.

And then Elena got kidnapped and here they were.

“You know my answer,” Elijah sighed in frustration. “Irene, I would never use your mother like that. I would never use you either. The two of you have nothing to fear from me. On this, I swear.”

“How can I believe that?” It hadn’t even been a night since Jules’ pack died. Her mom had come too close to finding out just what Irene and her friends were up to. Arriving at the boarding house not even an hour after Elijah slaughtered the wolves, it took both Damon and Alaric to distract Leonie enough to completely miss her trying to desperately magic blood out of the carpeting and dispose of the bodies. She almost forgot the absolutely fury Elijah rained on the wolves when he saw her withering on the floor beside Alaric, bloody and barely conscious. Ignored as he swore at Damon right after and forced his blood down her throat. Later that night, Leonie had told Irene that she smelt something strange in the house when she came to pick her up and the teen had lied through her teeth and joked about how that was just Damon’s usual stench. Trying not to think about how it was Elijah, himself, who told her to even go to the boarding house in the first place to pick her up, “I don’t want the same word you gave to Elena. I don’t want anything from you. In fact, I know that the two of us were never included in your first deal with her anyways.”

“Irene.” Elijah cut in, “I wouldn’t have let _anything_ come close to you or Leonie.”

It was said with so much finality that Irene had to pause. While it was true that nothing happened to her family during the time that Elena was first kidnapped (for him!), it was mostly because that _entire_ time Elijah had spent in their company. In fact, the only time that nothing really happened was when Elijah wasn’t in their house watering the plants or waking up her mom or anything of the sort.

Irene clenched her fists. Any of those other happy incidents wouldn’t have mattered much anyways. Irene dealt with them all, and most of them were because Damon sent them their way on accident. The culprit himself was only minutes to follow when he realized what he’d done.

Her mom was none the wiser and Irene wanted to keep it that way for as long as she could.

“But don’t you see? Eli-jah”, her throat caught on the name, the man only stiffened at the reminder that she used to say it without any hesitation and even with a hint of affection. Now, she was sure that it was an affection for a man who didn’t even exist in the first place. “You’ve already used us. How else would the town welcome you in so openly if it weren’t for the fact that you were close to ‘Mystic Fall’s Most Successful and Emotionally Available Bachelorette’” She rolled her eyes at the title. “You have the town’s trust because of my mom, and you know what you know about Elena because of _me_.”

And what a fool she was when she realized that the fact the only reason why Elijah ever _knew_ there was a Petrova doppelganger alive this century was because of her and her constant flow of photos to his phone. Why Elijah even showed up in Slater’s coffeeshop in the first place. He was the one she ranted to because her mom was out on a work trip. _He_ was the one listening in on her phone call with Damon when he told her that Elena was off on her suicide mission.

“Were you ever planning on telling us that you were a vampire. An Original?”

Elijah’s white fists were all she needed to see to know her answer.

“Irene…”

“Were you ever even planning on telling _my mom_?” She plowed on, frustrated that this man was hesitating now in the face of his modern affair. Whatever speech she had written and rehearsed entirely thrown out for her new spiel. She was on a roll and each word burnt on its way out of her heart, “What were you going to do when Katherine came back? Were you just going to leave us because your first love was suddenly back? Elijah, what were we to you?”

Because when it came down to it, it was _always_ about Elena and her doppleganger ancestor. This whole mess started because of that woman, Elijah followed only to collide into her and her mom. This trainwreck of a situation would’ve never happened if it weren’t for _that_ and might’ve ended long ago as nothing but a passing sidenote in the love story of Elijah and Katherine slash Elena in whatever weird fiction God written them all into.

“I would never do what you’re insinuating, Irene.” The man stood up straighter and suddenly she wasn’t speaking to the man she had spent years bonding with but the Noble Original Vampire that Damon and Rose and Elena had all told her about. The man with a thousand years under his belt. The hesitation gone for stern words and a façade she knew was built on manipulation and blood. This was the vampire, not the man. “I’ve honor and to do that would be a disgrace to Leonie. What happened between Katarina and I do not matter in the face of what goes on between your mother and I.”

“Doesn’t it though? Elijah, listen to yourself. The minute Katherine is as accessible to you as my mom is, who are you going to choose? She’s not her replacement and she’s not going to be. Not to some Victorian vampire lady you’ve been chasing after for what? Three hundred years?”

The Original sneered at that, whether it was at the clear dig at him or at her mother she would never find out because she forced her voice louder than his when he started his retort.

“I’m making that choice for you, Elijah, and I’ve decided that I don’t want you to be anywhere close to my mom. It doesn’t matter anymore—we’re not like you and Katherine and Damon and Stefan. We’re not indestructible and _my mom_ … Elijah, you cant say that you would never put us in any danger because _you_ know that’s not true now that your brother’s coming. I don’t want my mom to get into the crossfire.

So please. Stay away from us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my dudes, i'm only publishing this now or else i'm going to keep hoarding these chapters for another 4 years ahaahah  
> I had a weird moment while editing this chapter that I realized just how Hong Kong Cantonese the name "Leonie" sounds, so I guess that's what she is ahahah… Not that Zhurong is even a real Chinese last name anyways but I got a plan for that -peace sign-  
> This is very in medias res, that's on purpose and tis my style. If it's a little confusing, no worries, it is to me too but we gonna learn how to fill in the blanks at the same time my dudes and also the fact that in medias res and unreliable narrators are just my MO


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes this is so indulgent lmfao feel free to skip as many lines as you want but tips and suggestions are always welcome. also feel free to flame me lol I wont reply maybe ill cry about it later but lets be real yall be crying during this quarantine
> 
> Dude I haven’t been a teenager in like forever rip me ;-;
> 
> I actually don’t like this chapter but whatever i hope you guys do

When Irene first introduced her mom to Mystic Falls, her mom refused to leave the house. So scared of what other people might think of Irene's supposed absentee mother and the rumors she might’ve accrued.

If it wasn't for her abrupt trip to the hospital, Mystic Falls and Leonie, as a whole, might’ve never have intersected so perfectly together.

The cause was, of course as always, Damon. In a bout of trying to figure out who was the more powerful of the two, the older vampire spurred Irene and Bonnie on into a fight that ended in Bonnie's favor. Irene, despite having been trained and, unknown to them, depleted of most of her powers after Pulling Leonie, let a blast go wayside and ended up with third degree burns that she refused to let Damon heal.

Bonnie, beyond mad already at being goaded into a fight, immediately drove her to the hospital and it was here that Leonie found her, after having received a frantic phone call from an unsure receptionist. Arriving just as frantic when she arrived in the waiting room.

"K-Kat?" The utterly hesitant and terrified tone of her whispered gasp was what made Bonnie look up between tears.

The Chinese woman standing before her was an utter mess. She looked to be around Jenna’s age, albeit a little older but it was hard to tell with her features. Her dark hair was pulled up into a bun, black circles visible under concealer two tones too yellow than her neck, and her entire outfit was littered with small white hairs. Like a white dog had attacked her on the way to the hospital. Bonnie knew only one white dog and that was Leonie’s Eurasier, Atlas.

Oh. Atlas.

Irene's mom, to Bonnie, was not that impressive a sight at that moment. She looked like she was just dragged out of bed and not at all worth all the excitement Irene had stewed up while talking about how her mom was finally back to stay permanently with her. Bonnie knew that with her dad’s passing, Irene was all kinds of out of sorts and Elena's supernatural business wasn't helping it. But for a woman that did not even show up for her own husband’s funeral, Bonnie really was expecting more out of one of her best friend’s moms.

Even if said best friend was hospitalized thanks to no one's fault but her own.

"Hi, Mrs. Zhurong," Irene had spent ages teaching Bonnie the proper pronunciation in exchange with Bonnie and her grandmother teaching her about their heritage. At this point, Bonnie was quite confident with her tones. She didn't know why Irene's mom stiffened all the same though, "I'm Irene's friend, Bonnie."

"Ah, Bonnie..." came the hesitant reply and then a perfectly manicured hand came up to scratch the back of her neck. Bonnie's heart was already wrenching at the thought of having hurt her friend, she didn’t want to think about the possibility that Irene’s mom was going to turn out her polar opposite and be not as accepting as Irene made her out to be. Despite being friends with the sheriff’s daughter and the town council’s princess, Elena (who liked to pretend that she didn’t have everyone wrapped around her finger), Bonnie knew that some people just weren’t going to accept that her and Sheila were around to stay.

Irene talked the world of her mother. She adored the woman and Bonnie adored Irene. Ever since she started coming out of her shell, Irene liked to regal them of tales of her mom’s travels around the world and the people she met. Bonnie didn't want to find out if the protagonist of those stories would turn out to be just another passersby who’d scoff at her skin color as she walked by. Even if the reason why Irene was hospitalized was because of her, Bonnie didn’t want to hear it come out from the mouth of someone she was best friends with idolized.

Even if she did deserve it.

She didn’t realize she was clenching her fists white when she felt a silken touch ghost past her knuckles. Bonnie looked up and the haunted look on Leonie’s face was gone and replaced with a small smile, "You can call me Leonie. Can you tell me what happened?"

And she did, more than Bonnie liked to admit. The sudden shift in uncertainty to responsive acceptance was so reassuring that Bonnie couldn't help it. The second Leonie shifted herself so she was completely turned towards her and started patting her arm with her free arm, Bonnie unfolded like a house of cards. She found the more she talked the more she liked Leonie and the more she understood why Irene seemed to think the world of her absent mother.

It was in the way that once she heard Bonnie’s voice catch, she immediately folded the girl into an embrace and despite the pounding heart in Bonnie’s ear, Leonie kept whispering that everything was going to be alright. Her quiet voice silencing the sound of the hospital around them and drowning out the sound of Bonnie’s own guilt.

There was something about Irene that made it so easy to let loose around her. She noticed it during one of the many sleepovers they’d have when they were younger, when Caroline and Elena were far gone in their dreamlands. Bonnie and Irene would stay up until their eyes burnt just talking about the looks they’d get from townspeople and bond over the fact that no one else really _got_ it. With Caroline and Elena, Bonnie was always scared of being too loud and rowdy alongside the girls. Until Irene was adopted into their trio, Bonnie thought that was all she was going to be until she left Mystic Falls—the quiet and reserved friend. It wasn’t until Irene joined in, did she really feel okay with letting loose when they all started going to parties and drinking until the sunset.

Being around Leonie felt like a fresh new breeze of air. If Irene was like stepping outside for the first time, then Leonie was the breeze that lulled you out and the beam of sun that warmed your skin.

Idly, she wondered if this was what it would be like if her mom never left her in Sheila’s care.

When the nurse finally let them know that Irene's operation was over and was okayed for visitors, Leonie practically flew up from her seat alongside Bonnie and into the room the nurse just exited out of.

The fact that Damon was already in there did not seem to faze her at all. Not as much as the fact that the second the two Zhurongs’ eyes met, the younger of the two completely broke down in a way Bonnie never witnessed before.

When Leonie immediately went over to her daughter and started combing her fingers through her daughter’s hair, whispering words that cemented the image of a tired single mother comforting her child in Bonnie’s eyes, it just clicked and she had to yank Damon out of the room just so the two could keep their privacy. No longer did she look disheveled in Bonnie’s eyes. Just overworked and tired of something unsaid. Her messy hair but clean manicured fingers blended into one cohesive image that she knew someone like Carol Lockwood would never dare allow herself to be seen in public in. Leonie _was_ a tired single mother with just as many resources as Carol but without a care in the world for the social side of her money. She didn’t quite understand it, but she _got_ it.

Just as Irene waxed soliloquies about her absent mom, Leonie seemed every bit aware of what she said and tried her best to play the accompaniment. Bonnie never knew Irene to break down. She’d seen her through heartbreak and cheesy romcoms, but not in the same way she was now wrapped in her mom’s arms. It was like a cork was unscrewed and all the tears couldn’t be held back anymore.

Bonnie had seen the lost look in Leonie’s eyes. Bonnie also saw her close her eyes before kissing the top of her daughter’s head and shuffled her closer.

Before she closed the door, she noted how comfortable her friend looked despite bawling her eyes out and being hooked on anesthesia. It was a look she hadn’t seen since before the funeral when Irene would go around town and hang out in the weirdest places with her dad.

After the third degree burns fiasco, Leonie seemed to suddenly be almost everywhere throughout Mystic Falls. Irene called it adventuring for the first few weeks where she dipped out of their plans to drive her mom around the town. During that month, she was introduced to almost anyone that was worth being introduced to and it seemed like after a few minutes she charmed her way into all their hearts like she did Bonnie.

Irene, as a joke, called it her motherly instinct— her mom charisma. Her BME. Big Mom Energy.

Leonie was none the wiser and kept doing as she was doing. When it seemed like she was as comfortable with the town as the town was comfortable with her presence in not just the Falls but also in Irene's life (her meeting with the Salvatores were interesting, to say the least), she really stepped up to the image she made of herself after allowing Irene to keep living in that mansion of her’s and went back to her work life.

Irene said her mom was something like a traveling writer slash performer of sorts. Her stay in Mystic Falls after years and years of being absent in her daughter's life was something like a sabbatical. But now that she was her own boss, she just had to keep up with meetings and whatnot.

It was sometime during one of these meetings and her monthly work-related absences that Mystic Falls as introduced to Irene’s not-yet-stepdad— Elijah.

And let it be known that Mystic Falls loved Elijah as much as they loved Leonie from the moment they laid eyes on him.

The first time Caroline and Bonnie met Elijah was during one of their days off in which Elena went to go hang out with Stefan. Caroline was only a little bit incensed that the girl had dipped on them to hang out with her boyfriend, but Irene had reassured her that the Gilbert girl had plenty of chances to come hang out with them in the future.

It wasn't like they were going to be banned from having sleepovers anyways.

The freshly renovated Zhurong house was beautiful and huge and even though it had the perfect space for it, devoid of a pool. A fact that Caroline lamented but Irene was strangely adamant about not having. Her dad (may he rest in peace) was a swimmer turned librarian when an injury healed the wrong way; it just seemed entirely absurd that the man wouldn't have installed a body of water in his own home— was Caroline’s argument. Irene would just shrug it off every time as the blonde treated it like it was the scandal of the century.

It was during one of these rants that Irene’s mom and Elijah walked in. All three girls were sprawled across the fully spread out sofa bed with Atlas sleeping in between them. Caroline, just about three sentences into the conclusion of her thesis as to why the Zhurong residence was just begging for the presence of a pool when Leonie breezed past the living room before stopping abruptly. A clear giggle cut short in the short second it took for her to realize that she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

Caroline’s first impression of Leonie was very much the same as Bonnie’s. Messy hair but detailed like a royal. Unimpressive with a dash of strange. Their first meeting was so similar down to when the woman stared at her in something akin to stunned awe. To be honest, and let Irene never know this fact, Caroline thought that Leonie was actually a bit daft in those few minutes of their meeting. She knew her best friend liked talking about her mom, but the fact that the first thing that Leonie had said upon seeing the blonde for the first time was a hesitant “Candice?” was kind of insulting.

“No, it’s Caroline actually.” Never one to judge too fast, Caroline had sprung up and immediately after Leonie had blushed a bright red and apologized just as fast. The bright smile that sprouted over Caroline’s features thereafter was shared between the two as the conversation turned from awkward to some funny topic or other. Long story short, Caroline really did like Leonie. She was so _refreshing_ in the clamminess that was Mystic Falls.

So along with Bonnie and Irene, for whatever reason given that this was _her_ mom, she paused and just stared as Leonie came into view followed by a taller man dressed in a rather dashing three-piece. Leonie herself was also dressed to the nines in a white lace dress that Caroline swore she once saw was hanging in the back of Irene’s closet last she checked. The girls exchanged looks as Leonie stiffened like a teenager caught doing something she ought not to be doing before clearing her throat.

“Girls,” beside her, Irene was tilting her head curiously at the man standing beside her mom. With three teenagers giving them the most absurd re-enactment of parents catching their rebellious daughter sneaking back into the house at night, the man looked totally in his element. In fact, with the way he was posturing next to Leonie, it seemed like he was enjoying her discomfort and damn. Caroline was so curious.

“Hi, Eli.” Irene greeted and the two girls beside her swung their heads back to stare at her. Though a little taken back, Irene acted like the scene before her was perfectly normal. If not amusing. Judging by the smile, whatever development they were all witnessing was something she was _very_ satisfied with and god forbid if Caroline did not get all the details by the end of the night, she was going to tear Irene Zhurong a new one.

“Good evening, Irene. Having fun?” Oh lord, even his voice was _wow_. Dulcet was the only way to describe that accent.

“Mmmhmm,” Irene hummed and exchanged looks with her mom, who to her credit, wasn’t even trying to pantomime killing her daughter if she didn’t shut up in the next three seconds. “How was dinner?”

“Excellent,” the man answered back and damn if that didn’t make Bonnie and Caroline swoon. The man adjusted his tie and _aw!_ placed a hand on Leonie’s back, staring down at her with a small smile and no longer looking at Irene. “The company had a lot to do with that.”

Bonnie could’ve punched a hole into Irene at that. The Chinese girl was definitely going to have a bruise with how hard Caroline was squeezing her arm, an action that she reflected with almost the same strength to her. One of the three of them almost squealed.

The look on Leonie’s face was well worth the injuries. Everything about her just screamed relaxed next to Elijah, his posture and expression reflected right off him onto her. She was smiling as she leaned into his touch. Caroline and Bonnie would have argued it to be lovingly. Later, Leonie would argue back that the man was just radiating heat and she was unconsciously inching towards him because she didn’t know that Irene’s dress was _that_ breezy. At the moment, the older woman just stared at the man-not-her-boyfriend with an expression close to what priests would say newlyweds looked at each other with before composing herself and addressing the three of them, “so it looks like this year’s town events are going to have a new sponsor.”

“Cool,” Irene whistled nonchalantly and even if Caroline was excited at the prospect _, imagine all the possibilities!_ , she was still enthralled with the actual Hallmark movie moment happening before her.

When Elijah finally left with _everything_ that included a kiss on Leonie’s hand, everyone screamed and that was all it took for them to circulate the rumor that Mystic Fall’s resident bachelorette was taken in every sense of the word. After Caroline finally was able to get everything out of Irene about the man, she had a new mission that included a dossier as to why Elijah Smith was the perfect candidate to being Irene’s new stepdad.

Of course, none of the girls told Leonie (who vehemently and frequently claimed that that man was only a business partner, but she _will_ admit that Elijah _was_ dreamy) about the dossier and Caroline’s new personal mission. Irene only knew a little bit about Caroline’s new obsession, but for the most part, left the vampire to her own devices.

And obsess over it, she did. Caroline went through pages and weeks of planning and giggling to Bonnie until Elena’s literal existence turned all their lives into a dumpster fire.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine got me not knowing who I am anymore.  
> This chapter is a little messy so I hope it's okay. I'll go back and edit these 3 chapters one day when doing just that doesn't set me back 3 months.

Here are the facts:

Irene was just shy of six years old when Sheriff Forbes found her by the outskirts of the old dilapidated cottage.

The young girl was scared beyond her mind.

In years to come, her mom would supply the incident Irene mentally coined as "the reason why I will never go on roller coasters again" as the reason why she was so controlling. Or tried to be so controlling. In a town like Mystic Falls, there was really no way to take full authority over the world around you. Irene, even to the best of her efforts, would find herself constantly disappointed when things didn't go her way. When people didn't follow the script she wrote for them in her head to a T.

It shouldn't have been even possible. Scared was the lightest way of describing it. Six-year-old Irene's sudden appearance by the cottage on the edges of Mystic Falls marked what was to be the start of her tirade down her oncoming years of chaotic disarray. One that was filled with things that were constantly out of her control.

When Sheriff Forbes found her, Irene was frozen still in a mess of fallen and dried leaves. Her toes bare and digging into the rotten earth. The cottage, that would soon be renovated and subsequently abandoned in an even worse state, was devoid of life and any evidence of foul play. Liz had recorded it down in her file as a possible kidnapping and ditching. No one but Irene and the man who'd pick her up from the station knew what it really was.

At the time, all that was echoing through Irene's ears was the groan of steel and wind. One second, she was soaring through the air ready to be squashed like a fly on the wall while buckled into a metal contraption, and the next she was hit only by a deafening silence. Her heart had stilled in her confusion. What used to be the tops of tents and other carnival rides had transformed into the ground level of forest in her eyes, her brain could hardly catch up to where she was following the roar of metal and screeches of the other people on the ride. Irene could see the green, lush nature blanketing her feet, and feel the gentle breeze against her neck but all she could think about was the suffocating grip of the seatbelt as the rollercoaster train jettisoned itself off the tracks.

Irene didn't know what or where she was at the moment. Everything was ringing wrong in her mind as she struggled to make sense of what happened. When Sheriff Forbes leaned down to her level and tried to pat her arm to reassure her, Irene was sure she must've gone absolutely feral. The sudden physical contact, she remembered, felt like an iceberg crashing into her otherwise shipwreck of an operation. She knew that she was in the sky just seconds before this woman came to her with the most gut-wrenching expression.

There was no way she was supposed to be able to feel her fingers rubbing circles into her arm.

The gusts in her ear picked up, and the stimuli made the steel screech.

She must've died.

She had to have died.

This had to be the afterlife.

Irene felt fried to the bone and numb to the touch. She completely was out of her element and nothing Liz was saying was making sense. She remembered her breath hitching the longer those fingers rubbed into her scrawny arm, remembered moving her head down to stare and seeing only dirtied skin. No blood. No bone. Just mud and the remains of bright green grass speckled over her clothes like she'd rolled down a hill, even though it was the middle of the Fall and everything was starting to die. The leaves beneath her toes crunched and she remembered distinctly the fact that she hadn't taken her off her shoes before going on the ride. That she had worn her favorite pair of sneakers that her mom bought her on the first day of school and—

Irene clawed herself out of Liz's grip.

This was all wrong. There was something abuzz under Irene's skin but none of her senses were responding the way she knew they were supposed to. Her eyes said she was fine, but her brain screamed that no, a rollercoaster accident would leave more than just grass and mudstains. Her heart was accelerating itself into a marathon— racing a hundred miles per second, a sensation that was new to her six-year-old body. Everything screamed that it hurt but it didn't at the same time. Liz's voice, trying her best to cut through the confusion, wasn't helping any.

Irene knew that she should have had broken bones, broken legs, broken limbs, a broken neck...

Instead, she had dirt in the beds of her nails, and mud stains from her tussle in the leaves.

Irene knows that she should have died.

That she probably was dead if it weren't for the fact that when Liz touched her, she felt her. Felt her thumb rub circles on her arm, felt her breath against her cheek. Felt the warmth of her touch.

It's impossible, she'd tell herself over and over again until she eventually worked herself into a faint. Stressed out by the constant collisions of conflicting facts around her.

One second she was strapped into a roller coaster, the next her feet were dug deep into the earth.

There was no way it should've been even remotely possible.

Not unless she was dead. Then it would all make sense, right? Irene knows that she should have died. That there was no way to survive that accident. That somehow, someway, something weird happened, and now she was here.

In the afterlife. Or something close to it.

Trying her best to listen to this grown up's words but hearing only the screeching of metal and wind.

She was six years old when God decided to spare her the shock of being swatted like a fly.

(When God decided to swat her into a whole other universe)

She could still see her mom's face. Smooth lines and stretched in horror, screaming as the cart tore away from the tracks. Unable to look away as Irene and the rest of the passengers flew.

Her mom could make sense of it all.

The last words she croaked out before blacking out, Liz would tell her once she was older, was nothing but a chilling,

"I want my mom."

.

Irene is a witch or something along those lines.

"You don't have any ties to an ancestral lineage here. So technically you'd be first generation." The man who says he's her dad, but can't be her dad because she's supposed to be dead but she isn't, tells her during their first lessons together. She doesn't get long with him before he too is dead, and she is passed along to his "great" grandma. To Taaimaa.

It's long after he helps her get settled in, a year after he picked her up from the police station and becomes his ward even though the papers all say she's his daughter. Irene doesn't know what to make of it at first and decides to dutifully ignore it until it's too late to take it all back.

They establish right away that she has no control over her magic.

"Witches here funnel their spells into words." Her first attempt at Latin results in her setting the couch on fire. "Ok, that's weird. What about no incantation?" She flooded the kitchen. "Try to focus? Aim for the bullseye." She got the bullseye, but she also drilled a hole right through every tree in immediate proximity to where the two of them were standing.

Their new house that he wants her to move into after all the renovations are over is the same one that Liz had found her outside of. They still have the mansion in Mystic Falls, a grand three-story building with an indoor pool that he's in the process of taking out and a garden straight of her mom's dreams, but he tells her that maybe it's better for her to be close to the spot that she was summoned to until her magic finally settles down. That he doesn't want her to feel like, despite taking his last name, that she's chained to him.

The trees all have small circles drilled through them and there's an area further back where all the trees toppled over in a perfect circle. The workers that the man hired in charge of the renovations all take turns driving her home whenever she drops by to see the house. All of them warning her time and time again not to go into the forest alone in fear of the cultists lurking there, and all of them reprimanding the man time and time again for buying literally the worst plot of land within the area.

Even if the land was apparently "lucky", the fear of the cultists who were drilling holes into all the trees around the house like some kind of warning surely was enough to deter them from actually moving in right?

They laid off it when they accidentally walked in on one of Irene's magic mishaps.

The house was supposed to be her's but after the man dies so she can have her mom with her, she tells the workers to stop the renovations. After Elena finds herself kidnapped in the same cottage, after running all the excess manic magic in her veins dry and after Taaimaa drains what little she had left…

Irene can't find it in her to finish the house. Her mom, after she finds out about the cottage, agrees and talks to the lawyer about paying off the rest of the workers' dues.

As it turns out, she doesn't need to be close to the spot that she first appeared in Mystic Falls in in order for her magic to settle.

Despite all their disastrous attempts, the moment they finally got something working for her, the man fell backwards into the grass and cried. His magic triggering the clouds above them to thicken up as he sobbed. Irene fell to her knees, overwhelmed at the display as the full-grown man who always seemed like he knew what the next step was, broke down without a moment's warning. The cups she was told to fill with specks of fire stared back at them, lighting them up in an amber glow before being put out by the shower he summoned.

The stick she used as a conduit fell to the ground beside her.

The man stayed sobbing in the grass as he signaled her over, patting her hair when she finally did crawl over to only find herself with her head against his chest and without nothing but a small giggle when their little puppy came toddling up to them.

She doesn't know how to explain it. For months after she was finally okayed by the hospital to be allowed to go home with him and he registered her under his family name, she felt like all the wrongness of being here was going to tear her apart. That the fact that she was supposed to be dead but not was going to get her smited for real any day now.

When the man first heard this, he told her that it was all his fault. That he played with forces beyond him and she almost had to pay the price for it and now she was a vessel overfilling with magic and that they had to control it before it was too late. That she feels wrong in her own skin because of the magic and that no, Irene. You're not dead, you're here and I am so glad that you made it safely.

In between sobs, he gripped about life and vessels and powerful beings and all sort of things that didn't make sense to her at the time. Carding his callused hands through her hair and squeezing her tight whenever he choked on the words. Irene remembers Atlas sliding up between them to lick the stray tears as he held her still under the rainshower he called forth by accident.

She's young and she doesn't get it, doesn't even know how to put it into words even now, but at that moment, she feels her chest settle back into tandem with his pounding heart against her ear.

It's the first time since coming to Mystic Falls that she feels right and it's the first time the man makes her cry out of something that isn't frustration.

Later, after he shuffles them inside for a warm shower and bumbling all over her in fear that she might catch a cold after being out in the rain for so long, he finally allows her into his library. It's a huge room, filled to the brink with dusty old books that he doesn't let her touch and glass cases magicked to the nines that she never sees again after the lawyer goes through their estate.

He sits her down on a chair in the corner of the library, takes out a grimoire, and begins their first lesson on life and nature.

Irene hangs off each word like a spider to their web.

.

The third fact is that Irene Zhurong is cursed to always be alone.

The doctors all think she has "Cotart Syndrome" when Liz first sends her their way. Irene knows from the look on all of their faces that it's not a good thing that they think she has it. The look on the man who's not her dad but says he is tells her the same thing.

Except he's the only one on her side and she doesn't know how to feel about this.

Irene's not an idiot. She knows that she really did die. There was no way she didn't. This had to be the afterlife because it was unreal. The roller coaster train she was in shot off the rails. No one could survive that.

This only gets proven further in her mind when she goes digging in the man's house when she's released and did he think that she was an idiot who'd fall for his pity? Of course she wasn't actually his daughter, Irene didn't even exist in this world until Liz found her and the man claimed her as his ward and later daughter.

It's all kinds of out of sorts but Irene likes to think about it like this: Liz scans the system for missing children, the man shows up not an hour later claiming her to be his missing ward, she is released to his custody, they bond, Irene searches the house for another her and the only trace she finds is an ultrasound picture and two death certificates.

The man doesn't say much those first few months but the house is full of answers and the truth is this — Irene didn't exist until she was thrown off the tracks and into the forest outside the Falls.

This, is information that she doesn't know what to do with at first.

Even as the months go by, the memory of screeching iron still rings loudly in her ears. She still feels like she's soaring through the air, knows her vocal cords will never recover from the trauma because the reality is that she screamed herself to the grave. The man lets her keep her name because Irene was all she ever known herself to be, but asks if she can take his last name as a form of protection. From what, she doesn't quite know but from there it's all just a spiral down into insanity; in the end, Irene was young, six, flown and dead.

She overhears the doctors tell the man once during a checkup that she might manifest different explanations to cope with her trauma. Retard syndrome, is what she heard the first time and then the man corrected her when she asked, is what the doctors try to advise the man to treat her for when she finally finds the strength to comprehend everything around her into a sentence that made sense even though it didn't actually make any sense at all. She should see therapists and psychiatrists and so on... The list went on and Irene threw a fit, overwhelmed at it all in that hospital hallway.

It was early in the afternoon, people were beginning to move in and out of the hospital, and she screamed and demanded in tears for her mom to stop playing tricks on her when she overheard the doctor say that in one drug-induced tantrum, she'd asked for a "guardian that was never there in the first place".

He was wrong. They were all wrong. The man that took her was a liar because she never even had a dad. It was always just her and her mom.

Her mom that she desperately, desperately, desperately wanted because only she would understand her.

Only her mom would help her make sense of what was happening.

Screw the fact that in her screams and sobs, the man was furiously was telling the man off. Screw the fact that the man was the one who calmed her down the same way her mom would whenever it all got too much and drove her home and let her stay in her room until she was ready to come out again. Screw the fact that he never took her back again and decided to start their lessons.

Irene died and now she was alone in a place she didn't even exist in until Liz found her.

She was dead and in a world away from her mom because Irene was dead. Dead. Dead.

After the man finally settled her magic into something that wasn't manically trying to tear itself out of her skin whenever someone made the wrong move, she thought maybe she could start all over again.

And then the spell went wrong and just as she was finally becoming closer to the man, he died and she was alone in a world she didn't understand all over again.

.

The last fact that Irene is sure of is this: she is in The Vampire Diaries.

She might have not figured it out right away but that was because it was freaking insane. Even to a traumatized dead six years old. After a while and some long talks with the man, she grew used to the idea and though she might not have been doing that well in school, she remembers every detail of the series.

Her first step is to write it all out. She has 3 long journals down before she realizes that's basically all she remembers but there's a part of her that knows that there's more.

And then she burns them all. Because she's read this same exact thing before and she was not going to be the one who outs herself.

She wrote everything down from the moment Liz decided to come around with her own daughter and Caroline decided to introduce her to her own friends. She wrote everything down from meeting Caroline to meeting Elena to realizing that the name of the town she found herself in wasn't just a happy coincidence. She wrote down every lesson. Wrote down the names of everyone she met. Wrote down histories that she listened be created beforehand. Wrote down pasts that were part of her own but through the mouths of tired adults. She recorded her own life mixed with this new fictional reality and recorded the future from the moment the Gilberts' took a dive off the Wickery Bridge.

The details all mix together but in the end, she fills three giant notebooks. Her fingers have pen indents forever carved into her skin, her wrists hurt from the long nights of just writing and recording and remembering.

She pauses at the end, taps her pen against the page. Her final words trail off and Irene feels nothing but a hard plummet.

Everyone she knows in this town is surrounded by family of some kind. The man who lets her call him by his first name and nothing else is the only person she has in this small backwater town and then he's gone too and so she burns everything.

Before the roller coaster, Irene lived her life in a bustling city filled with noise and activity. She was surrounded by people almost every minute of the day thanks to her mom's work schedule and it was all company she welcomed wholeheartedly. Because she knew them and they were, in every part, her family.

And then she was summoned here by the man she wanted to start calling dad and she lost it all.

Now, all she has are relationships with people she grew up listening be storyboarded. Fictions that became more of a reality with each passing day and people she's only loosely familiar with. The day the lawyer passed the house on to her was the day she thought she could finally be comfortable with calling the Man her family but he was gone and she was left alone once again.

But by then, she was okay with it.

Irene knew where she was, what she was, and who she was and by sixteen, she made a decision.

Irene may have died when she was six, but Irene Zhurong was well and alive and a witch with a magic reservoir dying to be used.

This was her new life now.

And she was going to start her life in the very same show that her mom helped pitch by doing the impossible.

Because if she was here then who's to say that her mom couldn't be either?

Irene wanted her family too.


End file.
